The Thrilling

Dark, brooding, tense, gripping, head-fucking, tour de forcing, slick, raw, ace and fantastic...words and terms that still don't adequately describe the power and the glory that is The Killing (Forbrydelsen). It's pointless to preach to the converted about the plotting, the pacing, characterisation, deft editing, photography, sound, music and the whole package. You already know that. Those of you who have seen it now know that few drama's, especially crime thrillers, can come as close to such dramatic immersion of the senses as this. Most things you see on TV will look like a bucket of shit now, if it didn't already. And ignore the crap about jumpers. Yes, Sarah Lund wears a jumper! Hm, Columbo wears a mac, Kojak has a lollypop...sigh. Yes, it's iconic, idiosyncratic maybe. Move on though. Please.

Now if you don't know what the hell I'm on about, don't just sit there like a tit, watch it! You'll find a way. Although it's a police procedural of sorts, The Killing is also a political drama, a soap opera and to some extent a psychological horror. Unlike many crime based dramas and books, you are confronted every episode with the grief of a family and you are drip fed plot, character, plot...suspense...plot...A kind of pleasant torture. We the audience switch roles from useless by-standers to voyeurs, I suppose. At the centre of the narrative is the haunting, tragic figure of the deceased, Nanna Birk Larsen, the  ice cool detective, Sarah Lund and political hopeful Troels Hartmann. Over twenty days we follow the events with all its twists and turns. And there are many. Sometimes it doesn't twist, nor does it turn but it remains static. Oh yeah, and it's so fucking cool when the bass, strings and drums start to swell towards the closing credits at the end of every episode, leaving you not only wanting more, but almost open-mouthed in awe.

It's pointless to bore you all with a hefty analysis of the narrative and profile of characters as you'll find that elsewhere, and probably more obsessively detailed. It's also silly to get hysterical about the possibility that the last episode raised as many questions as it answered. But rest assured on re-watching it, on looking forward to the next two seasons BBC 4 will bring us, if all the answers aren't there, I'm sure we'll dip into the small threads left dangling in each series. Ninety odd percent of the viewers felt satisfied by the conclusion and their reactions which does, to a large extent, resolve things. There are a few though, armchair writers and critics, who really expect every 'I' dotted. This is silly really. Many of the unanswered questions are not actually unanswered if you watch it closely and the bits that don't seem to hang, you'll find are the result of cover up's, departmental fuck up's and the result of unreliable and duplicitous characters.It's not always the writer's job to tell us what motivates a character, it's mental to think otherwise.

 

Many conventional telly crime dramas (most of them not very good) are neatly tied together in a scene where the central character says 'Right...kiddies...this is what happened and why?' Part of the appeal to its fans was that The Killing wasn't conventional, it doesn't claim to have the answers, as with life and crimes (solved and unsolved) some things will always be up in the air. It's flaws, as with the character flaws are purposely and purposefully obvious. There are, I must admit certain things I'd love explained or resolved, but that's immaterial. It's essentially perfect drama. So there are a few, rabid, red faced nutters and, embarassingly, published authors frustrated at this new infant in their block. Well stay away from courses which teach you how to write by munbers. Casting stones...sins...come to mind. (Forgive my terrible biblical refs. btw. Now there was a book with more plot holes than a Doctor Who episode!)

I suppose this series is now a cult, whatever that will mean (hopefully not idiots with too much money shelling out on jumpers at conventions) It's fair to say it hasn't been hyped really. (Mainly due to the fact that 500,000 viewers and little interest on ludicrous trending topics in twitter could constitute hype, but that was mainly due to the fact that people were scared to go online in case some fuckwit revealed who the killer was.)

 

Oh...did I remind you that it has subtitles?

...and this just feels like...spinning plates...

For as long as he lives poor old Liam Gallagher will never understand Radiohead. Come to think of it I'm not sure I understand them too. I gather though that their new album The King of Limbs, isn't just about an old tree. But then again...

I didn't understand Thom and Co. when Creep came out. It was just another post-grunge, jangly guitar record by someone pretending to be angst-ridden, wasn't it? I was more into Euro dance music at that time, the first Abba revival and any number of electronic duos. When some punchable idiot coined the term 'Britpop' to christen the generic indie scene, Radiohead's The Bends seemed at odds with Oasis and Blur. For all intense purposes it was outside of it, outside of my radar as well. It wasn't untill late 1997 that I realised how beautiful Street Spirit (fade out) was, how many goosebumps Planet Telex gave me, and how devastating Fake Plastic Trees was. These discoveries came to me AFTER the majesty of Paranoid Android, the unsettling but complete OK Computer. I was hooked. Could never really get into their early stuff but that didn't matter, we were moving on together, perhaps. In 1998 I bought the EP Airbag/How Am I Driving? from Music Zone in Wigan. I loved it. Not only did I enjoy the tracks but the little short vignettes of short fiction contained in the booklet, New Job and Chip Shop. Yep. More b-sides were added to my collection, Talk Show Host, Bishop's Robes.

It was also refreshing to read interviews in Q with a rock band who didn't talk shit about how great they were, how much they drunk or how wasted they were. In fact they didn't seem to talk shit at all. You were more likely to listen to Thom discuss root canal surgery or filling in his UCAS form as opposed to him boasting about how much he vomited into Selway's lap.

I gather some people didn't like Kid A much but the disjointed, cut up vocals, electronic experiments that defined the majority of this and subsequent albums were a breath of fresh air for me. Here was a band who owed as much debt to Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada as they did 70s punk rock, and unlike many of their contemporaries, they weren't afraid to take this forward. Are they pretentious, vanity artists? I don't know. Who the fuck am I or any of us to say? It's certainly more interesting than Beady fucking Eye. And I don't care what anyone says In Rainbows' 15 Step is fucking storming.